A second Avenger
by VariableSky
Summary: A nomadic shinobi boy comes to Konoha after a massacre of his clan bearing a blank Hitai-ite. Joining the shinobi ranks, his case is eeriely similar to Sasuke. Will the past repeat itself? Pairings later: the regulars and OC?
1. Intro

AN: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the ideas or copyrighted or trademarked material. This writing is for enjoyment only.

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Naruto, the Rokudaime Hokage perched himself overlooking the village he so loved. His seat of choice was over the stone carving of his predecessor, Godaime Hokage Tsunade. He was alone, and by the expression on his face he carried a huge weight. This in and of itself was not uncommon, but the reason was far from every day.

The blond man was waiting for someone to return to his village, a close friend who had left without giving anyone hope of his return. A man that had become driven by revenge to the point where it had brought him to the brink of insanity. And then at that point he had found a moment of clarity that had brought Naruto and his closest friends to a place beyond what they had ever hoped for.

Sighing, the Hokage brought his hand down to his side to the tightly wrapped hilt of a sword. It did not belong to him, and as such since it was still here in his possession it gave him hope that his friend would someday return to his rightful place among what had become his people. With a small movement of his wrist Naruto slide an inch worth of the blade from it's bright red sheath.

The blade itself, while perfectly maintained and sharpened, wasn't Naruto's focus. Near the point where the small guard was wedged, two small rings had been placed under a pair of flanges that met with the guard. It formed a small prison for the two rings, which would jingle at nearly any movement, if the blade was out of the sheath. The Hokage could remember the first time he saw those rings, and when he played the story back through his head, it only brought forth another sigh, and :

"Come back soon, Jin. We're all waiting for you."


	2. Chapter 1: A Cold Mourning

AN: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the ideas or copyrighted or trademarked material. This writing is for enjoyment only.

We first start with a little of Jin's background. Very little of Konoha is apparent in this chapter, so if you're a Leaf or Naruto nut, this isn't the fic for you.

Later on, all the known and loved characters will be appearing and becoming consistent parts of the story.(Chapter 2 ;;)

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"Jin... Jin,honey, wake up, it's morning already." A pair of hands reached down and pushed lightly against a figure laying under a set of blankets tucked away in the corner of a large tent. "Jin..."

Ai, the person attempting to wake the drowsy boy, was arguably one of the best Seal Kunoichi on the face of the shinobi planet. But Jin didn't know that, if he did, he wouldn't have been so caustic in lack of reply. He simply peeked his head up from under the blanket, his rather long hair a bit of a mess and shook his head, sliding back under the covers.

"Oh come one Jin. It's breakfast already."

A light and drawn out grunt was heard beneath a rather thick blanket. Beneath this blanket was the curled up form of a boy, who while huddled in the warmth of the thick blanket and clinging to the wisps of a dream had no intention of waking up so easily.

"Jin... get up. **Now.**"

"Mmm...5 more minutes Hahaowai..." the boy, Jin, murmured in an attempt to placate his mother and sneak in a bit more uninterrupted sleep.

"I'm going to go check on breakfast, and when I get back in here, you'd better be up or else I'm throwing you out in the snow wearing what you are _right now_"

Beneath the blanket Jin's viridian eyes snapped open. _Snow was **cold**_.

and if you lived where Jin and the rest of the Michisuji clan had for the past 3 years , a distaste of snow would be far from unnatural. Even under the considerable weight of a fur line blanket, the young boy's toes felt the sting of a sudden temperature change when his mother lifted the flap of the family tent and the hungry cold air came in to gobble up the oh-so-precious warmth apparent in the blanket.

Resigned to his fate, Jin began the arduous process of slinking out from under the blanket towards his daily attire.

Before he dressed though, Jin pulled out a small shaving sized mirror from a knapsack stored in the corner of the tent and tidied himself up. He first tied his waist length green hair(an oddity among the Michisuji, and a never ending source of torture from his peers) into his traditional high ponytail. The single upbraided strand hung all the way down the the rug on which the nomad had sat himself cross legged upon. After quickly rubbing the sleep from his eyes he stopped to glance at the other trait that was not so un-common in his family. From the edge of his right eye to the bottom of his jaw, and from his eye to his hairline was a half-centimeter wide white line in the image of a T missing on of it's higher arms.. Not a tattoo per-se, but a mark that had evolved into the Bloodline limit of the Michisuji. "I wish they would finally tell me what this all means. Everything is so damn secretive..."

Finding everything in his face still in proper positioning and placement, he preceed on to dress.

First, underneath everything else went his most hated and prized possession: a weight suit stitched inside with the thickest yeti fur he had been able to find at the time. The suit itself was ungainly enough, being the stiff parka that it was, but the slots in the shins, forearms, thighs, biceps, back, chest and ankles each contained weighted plates. Since he'd been a child, Jin had worn suits like these. Even since he had first learned to walk, the weights had then been little trinkets like bracelets until his third birthday when the first and lightest suit had been 'given' to him. Since then at decreasing intervals, the weight had grown, just like Jin.

Looking at his suit gave him a rush of nostalgia for when he was younger and he had first taken his place among the Michisuji. His father was the head of the clan, a tightly nit troupe of Nomads that traveled throughout the lands of the Shinobi, well... all except for one land. No matter the amount of urging brought upon Iyashu, the Sousui no fuu (or Path Leader) would steer the clan from entering Fire country and the domain of Konohagakure no Sato. Sometimes, his guidance would draw the Michisuji i very /i far away from Fire country, like the present. Now, situation upon some of the highest peaks in Snow country, the string of mountains known as the Kooritsume, the wandering group had stopped.

As was ritual, when as certain number of mothers were about to give birth, the entire clan would adapt to a semi-sedentary life in order to both sharpen themselves and their weapons and to bring the next generation into the clan and raise them to the same demanding life lead by the rest of the extended family. Without a doubt, the Michisuji were some of the hardest people alive. In any condition, they would thrive; in the treacherous flatlands of Grass country they found ways to immunize themselves against all but the most fatal of the poisons, in Tea country the clan had birthed a political powerhouse that had stood un-touched by the intrigue rampant until the local daimyo had grown overly weary and disbanded it, in Wave country skills of fishing and swimming had become all but second nature. The list went on and on, until the final and latest entry. Snow country, the coldest place on the face of the shinobi continent. Here, they had learned how to bear the toughest conditions, and thrive.

"JIN! You're standing there in your pajamas **STILL!**"

Busted. Before he could even try to form an excuse, his mother moved across the intervening distance and smashed him over the back of the head with the wooden spoon she had been stirring this mornings concoction of meats and herbs into a palatable porridge. "What were you doing?" Ai demanded.

"Uh...I wasn't sleeping?"

"Get dressed right now and go see your father! He's been waiting for you on the overlook for the past half-hour!" Jin's mother, Ai, had given him most of her looks but thankfully none of her mannerism. For all her stern words, she would never in all her life raise her voice. At least, thats what Jin always thought to himself.

"Yes Hahaowai..."

With a sigh, he began to slide his foot through the irksomely weighted leg of his training suit.

"Oh and Jin? It's been four weeks."

Outwardly, the Michisuji heir winced, inwardly he screamed "**_NOT FAIR!_**" But in the end, he had no choice. With four weeks past, his time with this set of weights had come to an end. It would now rise to such levels he couldn't even put it into comparison of his body weight.

His mother came over and performed a set of seals much to fast for even Jin's practiced eyes to follow. Then, she touched the suit and murmured "Fuuin: Buatsui Fukyuu" (Seal: Forever Heavy). Instantly, Jin couldn't even hold the suit up off the ground.

He glared at his mother, who smiled sweetly back to him, "Your father is waiting."

He hurriedly dressed into his regular attire, throwing on his grey non-descript pants and his green kimono styled vest over the black body clinging weight suit. As he dashed, dashed being a relative term as the new weight increase slowed him to a crawl, he grabbed one of the white cloaks his family stacked near the exit of their tent home.

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Stepping out of the tent was a nightmare. Immediately off of the weight distribution provided by the many rugs of the tent/house Jin sank up to his thighs in the snow. It only made it worse that 3 of the other Michisuji teens were walking by at that same time, and burst into laughter when Jin seemed to grow shorter then his regular 6 foot tall frame.

"Haha! The girl's so fat that she can't even walk through the snow!"

"You idiot, how many time do we have to tell you Jin isn't a girl... he just looks like one!"

That brought a new chorus of laughter, some even from a few nearby Michisuji hunters carrying a freshly slain mountain goat between them. Jin however, was not pleased. While in fact he was built very femininely with long and slender limbs and a toned rather then large muscle structure, he was stronger (and faster) then either of those laughing at his expense, adults included.

Clenching his fists in anger more for show then anything, Jin played along in order to pay the teens back in full. "Oi! Come over here and we'll see whose fat, Shoari!"

Among nomads, bulky people were rare. And people of Shoari's girth were simply unheard of, the 15 year old weighed nearly twice as much as Jin himself did, and was a good foot and a half shorter. The end result was a fat, ugly kid whose face looked akin to a pink balloon with ears and had an ego to counteract every one of his faults. Normally, this would have made him the butt of all jokes for the commune, but quite the contrary, he was the resident bully and corrupting mentor.

Most days, Jin wouldn't have given Shoari and his goons a second thought, but today he was nursing the mountain size headache gifted to him by his mother and he was carrying enough weight through his suit to cause a small landslide. So, simply enough Jin let his actions speak louder then his words...

"Suiton: Yuki Shuuha!" (Water Element: Snow Wave)

Three sets of eyes glared daggers at him through a newly formed snowbank as he trudged through the snow towards the overlook, veritably dragging his legs as opposed to taking steps.

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The trek from the camp to the small cliff overlooking a large frozen valley took the better part of yet another half-hour; increasing the time of which his father had waited for the young Michisuji and more then likely increasing the ire the young man would have to face once he got within vocal(or technique) range. What he wasn't expecting was his father calmly waiting for him.

"It took you long enough, Jin." Iyashu Michisuji scolded his son.

" Gomen, Chichiuwai."

"No matter. This day was one I would have hoped in delaying as long as possible. Jin, I have but two things to say to you; The first is that you have always been my pride and joy, despite your foibles you have been as good a son as I could have ever wanted. The Michisuji are not opulent, but I can only offer you this."

Iyashu reached behind his back and brought forth a sheathed sword, looking to be about 40 inches in length and had no curve. With a simple toss, he sent the weapon through the air. Jin caught it and immediately felt the strength and craftsmenship apparent within the sword. "Tousan...where did you get this..."

"I called in a favor from an old friend."

The young man looked strangely at his father, who began to briskly walk towards him. "What was the other thing you had to say?"

Arms length away, Jin's father halted and looked down past his son. "I am afraid that there is just simply no time left to tell you. You must take this as well, " from a deep pocket Iyashu produced a hitai-ite the likes of which Jin had never seen. The forehead protector was completely blank. "The Michisuji are welcomed within all but one of the Hidden Villages..--

"Konoha?" Jin piped up, anxious to try to learn a little more of the ever enigmatic circumvention of the prosperous country.

"No. The damnable Village of the hidden Sound. Listen to me Jin there isn't much time," the older man looked back the way his son had come as if he had seen or heard something, " When you awake, you must take this hitai-ite to Konoha, only there can you realize the chance that it affords you."  
"What? Why?... wait.. Awake? Chichiuwai what are you talking about I just got up..."

"Promise me Jin!" There was something in Iyashu's voice, something that sounded desperate and almost pleading to his son, "Promise me you will do as I say..."

For a moment, the young nomad stopped to examine the entire situation. Here, his father, the most stern and strict man Jin had ever come across in his entire life was all but pleading with his son to follow his wishes like they were his last testament.

Wait...last testament?

"Tousan, what's going on?"

"I am sorry Jin. Make me proud."

The last thing he saw was his fathers hand, flattened into a practice chop heading for his neck. Then he was welcomed into oblivion in unconsciousness.

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"I am glad you wore the white cloak. For with it, you are safe from prying eyes."

Iyashu brought his right hand up to his mouth and bit his thumb. He quickly ran through a set of well rehearsed and often used seals. He then brought his palm down to the ground and muttered, "Kuchiyose no Jutsu."

A silver dragon sprang up out of the ensuing smoke, bearing a scroll on it's back between two nearly invisible filament wings. The dragon, the Ice prince dragon Katahskai, looked at the elder Michisuji while he reached up to sratch his snout with it's right paw. His blue eyes looked tired as he asked, " So, it's time then? He's come for the lot of you?"

Iyashu nodded sagely, "Before we go, I wish to prepare a few things for my son..."

The dragon watched a few of the clouds drift, seemed uninterested, but listening. "I wish to sign him onto the contract."

"What! Never before have the Ryuu clan consented to a continous line, what you ask is perposterous! It can't be done, that is something that is out of my hands. You know this Iyashu."

"I am not his blood relative."

"What? But the eye..."

"He is the result of the last true one to bear his name. When he was removed, I filled the void left by his disappearance as both Father and Husband. That however does not matter now, may I sign him to the contract?"

"If he is of the caliber you are, young one, then he may very well pass the requirements when he first calls forth his own. That is something neither you nor I can predict."

Reaching onto his back, Katahskai presented the elder Michisuji with the afformentioned contract. Jin's father used his sons hand to open the scroll, then from the holster strapped to his leg like so many other shinobi, he produced a kunai with which he cut a small slash in his sons finger to write his name onto the ancient parchment. Touching each finger to the source of blood, he sealed the contract with his sons own hand print.

What came next would forever tie the Michisuji to the Ryuu, wether they despised favoritism or not. "Now, as a final request I would ask that you retain this box...for him."

"We've done such things before..yet I must ask what it contains before I burden my brethern with it."

"Our way." Iyashu replied, all the intonation and severity in his voice highlighting that this was the techniques and abilities that Jin had yet to learn, for the Michisuji were far from simple nomads, if present day course of events had not already illustrated so.

"Ah."

"I will leave the contract with him, so that he may be with some guidance in what lies ahead. I trust that is acceptable?"

The dragon had returned to gazing at the sky, it was all the answer the exiled shinobi would ever need.

"Let's go."

With a flash, the dragon transformed into a sparkling Yari spear which leapt into the waiting hands of Iyashu. That done, he began to walk back towards the small cluster of tents that was his and his families home. A few steps back, he stopped once to look over his shoulder at the prone for of his son.

"Goodbye Jin."

A wind came up, stirring the power snow from the ground, obscuring all vision. When it died down, Iyashu was no longer there and Jin was a small speck of white in a sea of snow.

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"So. You were actually here, yeah."

"I told you he would be here, didn't I? Kukukuku..."

A flash of electricity crackled off of the end of the Yari, the only response not caught by the wind was, "Orochimaru..."


	3. Chapter 2: A Burning Goodbye

AN: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the ideas or copyrighted or trademarked material. This writing is for enjoyment only.

This story is centered around an OC, but it is not self insertion. He will be strong, but he, like most characters in the Naruto universe will get his fair share of a beating with the defeat stick. As well as can be expected from an OC insertion, the majority of the story, if not the entirety is AU. If neither of these status' are your cup of tea, there are plenty more fanfics out there.

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The sky was a cloudy gray.

There, he thought it. His cognitive processes returning to him, Jin suddenly felt the odd perception of a snowflake landing on his open left eye. He blinked a few times to dissipate the blurry spot floating on his eye.

_I'm awake. What happened? Why am I lying in the snow?_

A hand reached up to massage his temple, his fingers coming away bloody. Shocked, he looked to his hand to see the small slit of a cut on his thumb that had broken open. A scab he had often seen on his fathers hand... "Chichiuwai!" Jin tucked his chin down to his chest and kicked his legs up around and behind him as he bent at the knees, the young man somersaulted backwards into a half crouch. Fervently, he looked left and right then spun in a tight circle looking for any sign of his father. Nothing could be found to indicate any person had stood anywhere near him for days.

Obviously, that was not the case. Anyone left alone in the mountain passes of the Kooritsume Mountains for anything more then a few hours never came back(alive anyways). Checking the sun and his memory Jin took off at a trot towards where he had left the Michisuji commune, immediately concerned with getting to the bottom of whatever had happened in the time that he had missed. In one step, he accelerated to proper Shinobi running speeds and then in two steps he promptly fell for two reasons.

The sword his father had given him had jabbed between his legs, simply thrust into his belt as it had been. It was facing the wrong angle for Jin himself to have put it there, so sense dictated another had put it here. The most likely party being his father. As it turned out, his father was the second reason he tripped so shortly after regaining consciousness for around his left ankle was the strap to a large scroll almost 3 feet long and 2 inches think.

_A contract, --here? Whatever, no time to examine it._ Kicking his leg up and right almost to his shoulder, the Michisuji caught the scroll and lashed it to his back with the same strap that had bound his ankle. A short twist of his wrist brought his sheathed sword out of it's awkward position and held it firmly in hand.

New bundles in hand, literally, Jin took up a sprint towards the place he had woken up this morning, the bottom of his intestines feeling as though they were coated with lead. His eye were fixed in a wide stare that matched his harried breathing. There was no mistaking it, the young man was in a panic.

All pretense forgotten of approaching calmly fled in the face of dread; propelling his legs to a berserk pace, Jin left behind a steaming trail as soon as he rounded an outcropping and saw a dozen small columns of greasy smoke waxing their way into the sky to dissolve up into the low and ominously dark cloud cover. When he reached the camp, and was greeted with a normal sight of prepared tents and cooking fires, his mind nearly blew a circuit until he remembered the initial genjutsu seal that his mother would place to throw off attackers.

Bringing his fingers together into a concentration seal, Jin spoke aloud as he formed the chakra into the neccesary 'keys' to unlock the seal to his eyes. "Hitotsu." Ox. "Futatsu" Snake. "Mittsu" Horse. "Yottsu" Ram.

With the 'pang' sound of a completed jutsu, Jin felt the illusion melt away around him, yet he did not want to open the eyes he had closed once he reached the second obligatory seal to unlock the seal his mother placed. He could smell, hear and even taste the death in the air.

_No need to see it. No need to see it! Don't look! Run run far away! DON'T LOOK!_

But he opened his eyes anyway. Between pursed lips came a small whimper. In front of him lay three bodies all near or at his age. Shoari and his two friends, Michisuji and distant cousins to Jin, dead. Behind them, half laying in a puddle of slowly freezing water that was inked with congealed blood lay his Uncle Setsumo. He could smell the light peach sent in the air that most of the girls and women of the clan wore, all of it carrying with it the metallic smell of copper and the sickly sweet smell of death and. _Not unlike burning meat_, a small perverse part of the young man's mind spat out.

All around, he saw relatives and friends laying, mangled, burned and eviscerated. No body was left intact, everything had been desecrated beyond humane allowance.

"No..."

There it was, the first assurance that nothing was wrong, that everything was okay. _I must have unlocked the seal wrong, this..this has to be wha-what Mother would do to throw p-people off!_ He ran through the set of seals again, "Oushi, Hebi, Uma, Hitsuji..." Nothing changed; not that it would have as everything the shinobi saw was the truth. His deep green eyes took in all the carnage, all the destruction unabated as he ran from corpse to corpse shouting names and shaking shoulders hoping desperately to awake someone as if what he saw them with was nothing but a costume and this was an impromptu nap. _This wasn't fair, how...who could have done this to..._ The young man stopped, considering which word to use, "us" would entail the clan as a whole, but if he said "me", it would assert that he was the only one left.

"No...!"

The second denial came out louder, and was drawn out a little longer then the first. Aimlessly, he roved the came of family sized tents, searching each. Each yielding the same prize, his own dead clansmen. His mania would have gone on, building upon itself until he cracked, if he had not heard the oncoming sound of fierce wind.

Fate had a cruel hand to play against Jin yet. Two, in fact. Screaming out of the higher peaks of the mountain range came a fierce snowstorm, ready to gobble up any of the unprepared into it's freezing maw. And the young man was less then prepared. Diving into the nearest tent, he grabbed any sort of warm material he could then raced back into the center of the camp towards his own families tent. The same part of his mind the had commented of the smell of the Nomad camp recommended the young boy just use the nearest tent.

A more rational and conscious part of his mind refused, citing some pointless line of home being where the heart is. And his best chance for survival in the coming storm would be in the bulkier lower tents set up for the larger or more important families in the center of the camp. Crouch walking into the tent he had woken up for the first time for the day in, Jin was met with the serene sight of his mother, her body rather. She seemed to have been killed peacefully, with a single thrust of some weapon through her middle. One of her hands covered the wound, but had been unable to staunch the flow of blood.

In her other hand was a small leather book with many pages with a single word scrawled on the front, "Fuuin."

Partially ashamed of himself, Jin reached out and pocketed the book, knowing that if he did not, what was probably his mother's legacy of seals with fly away in the wind. Reason did little to salve to wounds of pride from taking from the dead. There was little time left for anything but swathing himself in his procured blankets and hunkering down in a secured corner because outside the wind began to blow and immediately the temperatures dropped.

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Hunger and Thirst were bad enough enemies to the attempt of continued life upon the Kooritsume mountains. Weather only served to complicate matters. But the natural order of things would pale in comparison to what came next.

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Curled into a fetal position, Jin shivered uncontrollably underneath his layers of blankets. Cold, even of this magnitude did little to sap the vitality from the young shinobi. What ate away at him the most was that his mother's cadaver was but 3 feet from him, exposed to the elements as all the rest of the Michisuji were. The wind and the blowing ice would be grinding away their clothing and flesh as sure as a desert sand storm in the lower deserts would have. The effect was something Jin was not likely to ever forget, once being lost in a similar, but much more inferior, storm. Back then, his 2nd youngest uncle had found him wandering the freezing wind looking for his own tracks that would lead him back to camp, for he was too young to realize the snow was erasing his own tracks and leading him in circles. Grinding his palms against his eyes in both frustration and to wipe away tears that had welled up. "Otooji Teijo... Obasan Kaede.." a sob broke his account momentarily, " Shiro-kun... Kyoko-chan, Shiaori, Takeo... Why? What happened!"

Everything, in that moment, completely and utterly came to a grinding halt. The wind didn't gutter out, it halted in place with it's small spears of ice redundantly frozen in place mid-air. Underneath all his layers of clothing, Jin suddenly broke into a cold sweat as an overwhelming sense of dread and apprehension swept over him.

He heard footsteps.

Not the regular light _tap-tap_ of a shinobi's practiced quiet footfalls, but a dragging and scraping sort of sound. A lazy or un-practiced sort of step that belied laziness or weariness. In a regular state of mind, Jin would have thought his reaction through, prepared a possible escape route or combat jutsu. But the young man was far from in his regular state of mind.

Springing upwards and swatting away the covering blankets he had amassed, Jin turned with a huge smiled upon his face in hope that another Michisuji had survived the massacre surrounding him. In a way, all of the clan had survived but saying that they had survived and that they still lived were two very different things. Surrounding the young man was a small horde of his deceased family, silently eying him down. Each still bore their wounds, some indeed were even missing limbs, and no longer maintained any of their personalities or conceptions. Their eyes even held no more of the previous life they had in hours before. Had he already not been on the brink of freezing, the return of his extended family would have drained the color from Jin's face and made his blood run cold.

Each body sported bits of frost and small amounts of cold burn making a patchwork of light blues and browns amongst their blueish skin tones, giving them a complete cadaver appearance. For as high up in the Kooritsume as Jin was, the bottom of his stomach had dropped out from underneath him.

"This... can't be happening...NO!"

Like a cat set to pounce, the last sound that came out of Jin's mouth caused the group of wights to spring into action. A chorus of low pitched shrieks vibrated the air, causing the motion-frozen ice to vibrate and tremble as it hung motionless in the air. Jin froze in shock as they lunged at him, fear and shock overriding all instinct. The leading cadaver closed the gap between Jin and itself before the young man could even blink. Her hand, the body was that of his own mother, grasped for him and he couldn't gather the mental where-with-all to move out of the way.

It was then that the same slowing of time that had halted the storm reached both Jin and the wight. A mere inch from the green of his eyes, the hand had been halted. Likewise, Jin himself had no ability to physically move. Held suspended and immobile, he was qnow in a situation in which no harm could come to him, but he was still unable to remove himself from possible harm. Frenzied to an almost frantic state, Jin was unable to comprehend what, or even where he was until heard a voice that almost sent him to the brink of tears...

"Jin...Jin you must hear me..."

"Oka...-san?"

"Jin!"

Looking to his left without turning his head, an image wavered in and out of the young shinobi's vision, an image of his own mother. Her expression was one of pure worry, and strangely, a small bit of pride.

"Jin... you have lived. But you have not lived enough, yet. There is still one thing that you must do..." a small tear welled up in her right eye, and was slowly wiped away, " We have all talked, and have agreed. You must use our strengths, all of our strengths, to accomplish this."

---_What does that mean, Mother?_

Her feet floating a few inches off of the ground, Ai floated to behind the immobile boy. "Only I could. Do not fight it Jin." With those simple words, she plunged her hands into those of the boy she had given life to once before. Now, she would be giving it to him over 200 times again.

For his body, time resumed a normal flow but to Jin's mind it moved as in fast-forward. His hands flew through hundreds of seals, periodically swiping a finger out towards the claw of the wight to employ bio-logical aid toward the jutsu's end. Specifcally, it was a seal very similar to one that Ai had taught only to one other, only slightly modified. The use and methods of the seal had died with the only other person who had ever used it. _That_ person, however, had been able to use it to save precious people. Ai now used it to even more selfless ends.

Quietly, as the last seal was formed by Jin's hands she whispered to her son, " Remember Jin, we ask only one thing in return. Only one. Make our gift worth our deaths."

"Fuuin: Chihou Ikioi Jougo" (Seal: Area Spirit Funnel)

There was a incredibly bright yellow flash, and then Jin's eyes stopped working. It crossed his mind later that he had perhaps simply closed them, but his conscience was better sated with thinking he had no control at the time. Slowly at first, the very essence of all of those around him flew toward and into him. At first, it was a warming sensation that progessed to an even heat all over his body. But from there the feeling grew exponentially. His skin crawled, and then felt as though he were close to a very large fire. Would he have been able, his scream would have highlighted his pain to all who would have been able to hear it. But it only got worse.

Each finger felt as though broken in a thousand ways, each nerve burned with a fire to rival a thousand suns, each thought was being cut in a thousand pieces. More and more the pain stacked upon itself, emblazoning the moment that Jin was given all of the chakra strength of the Michisuji with raw bold and undeniable pain. For each persons chakra forced into his own body, a small amount of an inked seal began to write itself onto Jin's skin. As each member of his decimated clan contributed their chakra ability, the pattern grew more complex and intricate. Slowly but surely, the process intensified and increased in speed until the green of the young man's hair was the only color visible against the torrent of yellow light. Inside that storm, his own mind was imulsed in every form of pain the mind could conjure.

It would seem simple burning was no longer enough.

Cold, shocking tremors, crushing and cutting sensations all tried to rend his sanity from his mind, and failed. Through an effort not even his own, Jin managed to hold on. Soon though, his body reached the limit of chakra possibility. The effects of the seal had not ended though. Into the written seal flowed the remaining chakra of the Michisuji, living and regenerating as would a living being.

Then, in an abrupt moment, the screaming winds and rivers of chakra flooding into the poor boy stopped. For a moment, everything was like it had been; frozen in time.

Then the backlash from the impossible amount of growth reared up in the form of an enormous chakra burn off. Jin could only watch as the bodies of the entire clan instantly turned to ash as a wave of chakra pulsed up into the night sky like a pillar of light.

Okasan...

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0

"Yosha! Ramen! Ramen! Ra-aa-men!" Naruto literally danced through the air as he and Jiraiya walked down the street towards a promise of free ramen after an un-disturbed session of 'material gathering'. "Ne ne, Ero-Senin, what are you going to have? I, FOR SURE, am going to have at LEAST three," Naruto indicated with three finger thrust nearly into Jiraiya's face, "...bowls of miso ramen and then a bowl of pork ramen..."

Zoning him out, Jiraiya suddenly felt his sixth-sense kick in. His stomach turned as he felt an extremely distant and extremely powerful chakra focus flare up. _What is that? It's huge! It rivals even what I felt from Naruto at The Valley of the End. This can't be good._

As if to underscore his statement, a short flash was followed by a seemingly endless pillar of light...

No, that's CHAKRA!

...lanced out into the night sky, then guttered out like a fuel-less fire.

"Kirei..." Naruto murmured behind the Sennin, "Ne, Ero-Sennin,what is that?

"Stop calling me Ero-Sennin, damnit!" Jiraiya had even been asking himself that, but had been un-able to come to any conclusion. Seeing it as something he was unable to do anything about for the time being, he had to simply let it be, and hope it wasn't something that he wished he took care of when it finally popped up.

"Don't worry about it, lets just go eat...for now."


End file.
